CES 2012: Series 5 Ultra, Samsung Ultrabooks

The line-up may have been long but the Samsung press conference was worth the wait. Among the products announced were the Series 5 Ultras, the new ultrabook family.



Available in 13.3-inch and 14-inch versions for the moment, the Series 5 Ultras have an Intel Core i5 processor, a 500 GB hard drive and 4 or 8 GB of RAM. To make up for the absence of an SSD - more responsive than a hard drive - Samsung has included a small (16 GB) amount of flash memory. This will be used for the most frequently consulted files and makes the machine faster in the execution of everyday tasks. It also allows the Series 5 Ultra to claim a start-up time in the order of 22 seconds and to come out of standby in 2 seconds.



The 13.3-inch model - starting at $1125 - is 14.9 mm thick and weighs 1.4 Kg while the 14-inch - starting at $1169 - is as close as can be to the limits imposed by Intel (21 mm maximum) with a thickness of 20.9 mm and a weight of 1.8 Kg. A little particularity with the 14-inch is that it has a DVD drive, something no other ultrabook currently on the market can boast.

While the Series 5 Ultras should be in stores in South Korea by the end of the month, no release date has yet been announced for Europe.

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